My Father's Room

Finally the house is starting to get in order. We got a new door. Paint with color is spreading across the upper floor of the house. The closets are being emptied. We are cleaning out my father's room. We are sleeping in my father's room. The room in which he lived when he lived here. The room in which he died. The room which we subsequently used as a sewing room and then as a cubscout materials storage room. The room which has been so full of cub scout boxes that you could barely walk in it. That room.

Last night I awoke at 3 in the morning. I heard rustling and scratching coming from the desk by the bed. Lots of rustling. I sat up in bed and it seemed that the desk itself was shaking. I went back to sleep.

In the morning I insisted that Art look in the drawers. One I had opened halfway and I saw that pages of my father's PhD thesis on Leon Battista Alberti had been clawed and gnawed. I was afraid to open it any further. Art opened it and yes, lo and behold, a nest of baby rats lay squirming in the tattered thesis.

An unpleasant scene ensued, but one undertaken with relative calm and aplomb by Art and my sons. It involved a bucket, bleach, some BBQ tongs and much squeaking. During the procedure the mother escaped to her crack beneath the dishwasher. The menfolk removed the main problem but I was left with the empty nest and the remnants of my father's various writings, shredded and shat upon. I sifted through them with the tongs, sadly acknowledging that they were the only copies and vacillating as to whether I should attempt to salvage or just chuck the lot. Finally I decided to save what I could and placed it in a bag for disinfection. I found other things in the drawer too; the usual nonsense I'd expect from someone like my Dad.